vegas April 21 to 28

This was our 3rd trip to Las Vegas this year.  We stayed at Alliante, Green Valley Ranch and the Suncoast, all comped no resort fees. Almost all meals were paid with comps or points, and we rented a car from Fox for 267 for the week total for a toyota suv, plus 55 dollars for gas when we filled up across the street. We had a great dinner at the railroad pass for the 2nd trip in a row.  On wed. they have for dinner for 2 for 50 bucks and it is awesome.  I recomend the salmon and take the cheesecake to go, because you will be so full.  We also do the Sunday Steak special on Sundays at the Martini.  8 oz Filet,  asparagus, and mashes potatos.  15 dollars with a players card and 17 without.  Great wines, and nonsmoking.  We got the tip from Anthony last year and has never disappointed.  We did the 2 fer at the palms buffet, and found that we had 2 more free already on or account, so went back for friday brunch.  Crablegs and steak, plus all the normal goodies !

     Las vegas is always a good time.  I will try to follow up on the gambling.

Great article on how you can do Vegas on the cheap. I just got back from a 6 day trip & used the MRB, food & room comps. Vegas can be affordable if you do your homework.

What is the Martini?  I see it when I go for massages at Elements.   Is it a bar, a casino, a restaurant?

the Martini is a great non smoking bar at the corner of charlston and  rampart/fort apache..Nice menu,and good  bartops and top shelf wines and drinks

Nice start to your TR.  Clearly you had some good food and beverage!  Now for the gambling...looking forward to that part.

Candy

I forgot to mention that we flew Alliagent air for 320 non stop for both of us.  We played at   The  Rio,

Aliante,  Santa Fe Station,  RedRocks,  Suncoast,  Durango,  Palms,  Resorts World,  Circa,  Freemont,   Binons,  Green Valley Ranch,  Rainbow Club,  Emerald Island,  The Martini, and the Pass. We didn't do a coupon run or use the free play at the Plaza, but did use the LVA freeplay at Binions.  The Plaza freeplay  coupon was only good after earning 25 points so we passed since they really have never sent us very good offers, and they had a major water leak in the ceiling right before the bar as you started to walk in.  

         Gambling was pretty good overall,  only two bad sessions at Durango, and one at Emerald Island . Emerald Island is just too smokey and crowded to be any fun.  The cafe was good, but things are so much better at the rainbow club.  Durango seems to be changing pretty quickly.  The games seem to be tightening up, and the cocktails seem to be lacking.  Not sure what is going on there, but they may be attracting a more working class clientel and running off the high end players.  Anyway two brutal sessions there wiped out our wins at the other properties, so Durango might be off our list.  The Rio is still pretty empty even though we heard it was sold out.  Thing are improving there , but we only stayed 20 mins just to check it out.  

I hear you about Durango.  We didn't fare very well there either and the cocktail waitress only came by once in the almost two hours we were there.   We should have just went to the South Point, which was our original plan.  

I have to put Emerald Island on my to do list For some reason never been

there I usually stay on The Strip or Golden Nugget What's the distance to

Emerald Island ?

It's about 15 mi from Golden Nugget south on 515 to Henderson.  I only found one bank of quarter video poker there.  There's more quarter VP at Raindow across the street.  Senior day is Tuesday so I'm staying away.  I won at both casinos and enjoyed my time.  Everyone was so helpful and friendly.  My spins got me $10 and $5.  Staff was more disappointed than me.  I'm going back before the end of the month to use my new rewards member coupons.  Take care.

Actually, while every machine (VP or slots) at EI can be played for one penny, there are always ways to play more. Either the machine has at least nickel denoms, or you can play up to 100 coins, or both. You can also play multi-line games at .01/02/05 per line. The practical maximum I've seen is $3 a hand, but I imagine you can go higher. 

My usual bet zone is $1.25/$1.50 a hand, and there are dozens of full-pay options for that amount. I might take a flyer and bet more, but one thing I like is that I can play as low as .25 a hand and still get full pay, which is certainly not an option if you're playing .25 single-line VP elsewhere.

Tuesday is indeed senior day (half off food), but midafternoon or after dinner, it's relatively quiet. Thursdays are when the joint is really jumping, with the easy gift giveaways.

There's another good reason to go there on Tuesday. Play $700 and get $10 cashback, and you can do that twice. Almost a 1.5% bonus!